March 18, 2009 PAGE 3
MIT Tech Talk
u
NEWS
Anantha Chandrakasan, director of
MIT’s Microsystems Technology Labora-
tories, last week received the Semiconduc-
tor Industry Association (SIA) University
Researcher Award.
Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy
P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engi-
neering, was honored for his work in
micro-power design, wireless micro-sensor
arrays and ultra-wideband radios.
Chandrakasan recently completed a joint
project with Texas Instruments to design a
micro-controller that uses only one-tenth
the power of a conventional TI micro-
controller. His group has also recently
demonstrated ultra-low-power video archi-
tectures, energy-efficient ultra-wideband
wireless circuits, energy scaveng-
ing systems and a sensor system
using carbon nanotubes.
Hector Ruiz, chairman of SIA,
said that Chandrakasan’s work
addresses the significant chal-
lenges faced by the semiconduc-
tor industry today.
“The ‘crown jewel’ in the
U.S. innovation ecosystem is
our network of world-leading
research universities,” Ruiz
said in a statement announcing
the award to Chandrakasan. “America’s
research universities attract the best and
brightest students and teachers from
around the world. University
researchers do the fundamental
research that has enabled U.S.
chipmakers to lead the world in
developing innovative products
and solutions.”
The SIA University Research-
er Award was established in 1995
to recognize lifetime research
contributions to the U.S. semi-
conductor industry by univer-
sity faculty. This year, Kang
Wang SM ’66, PhD ’70 was also
honored. The awards were presented at
the annual SIA conference in Washington.
MTL Director Chandrakasan
honored for semiconductor work
Anantha
Chandrakasan
As spring break approaches and
members of the MIT community make
plans for international travel, MIT recom-
mends that they review the MIT Travel
Risk Policy at http://informit.mit.edu/
epr/3.1travel_risk.html.
While community members are free to
travel on personal business to any location
they choose, the Institute restricts official
MIT travel to certain countries based on
the U.S. State Department’s assessment
of safety conditions. In addition, the State
Department’s web site provides extremely
useful and specific information on condi-
tions in every country of the world. See
http://travel.state.gov/ for information on
health risks, violence, political upheaval
and security concerns, availability of
consular assistance, and unusual visa or
internal transportation issues.
Both the MIT policy and the State
Department information are updated
regularly in response to changing condi-
tions. Currently, students on MIT
business — those taking part in an MIT
program or using MIT resources — are
prohibited from traveling to 20 countries
deemed high risk and face travel restric-
tions in 17 additional countries consid-
ered moderate risk. Faculty and staff are
advised to consider the risks involved in
these two sets of countries and to take
appropriate precautions. MIT advises all
members of the community to heed these
warnings and to be as well-prepared as
possible when undertaking international
travel.
Medical and security evacuation services
are available to faculty, staff and students
traveling abroad on MIT business. MIT
has contracted with International SOS,
a travel assistance provider, to make
available to MIT community members
its 24-hour Alarm Centers, a listing of
international clinics and remote-site
medical facilities, and online resources.
Travelers are encouraged to review the
International SOS web site, https://vpf.
mit.edu/site/insurance/policies_proce-
dures/international_sos, prior to travel to
obtain country-specific information and to
register their trip. Prior registration is not
required in order to obtain coverage but is
useful in case of an emergency.
For further information, please contact
Richelle Nessralla, associate counsel, at
rness@mit.edu; Regina Dugan, insurance
manager and associate counsel, at dugan@
mit.edu; or Brian Wahl, assistant dean for
global education, at bwahl@mit.edu.
A reminder on international travel this spring break
An MIT ocean microbiologist and a
Caldecott Award-winning author and illus-
trator have teamed up to produce a lavishly
illustrated children’s book that explains
how the sun creates life on Earth through
photosynthesis.
Penny Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine
Martin Professor of Environmental Studies
in the Department of Civil and Environ-
mental Engineering, provided the science
background for “Living Sunlight: How
Plants Bring the Earth to Life,” which was
co-authored and illustrated by Molly Bang.
The book is designed to help children
grow up with a better understanding of
how plants use the sun’s energy to photo-
synthesize, turning water and carbon
dioxide in the air into carbohydrates and
releasing the oxygen that makes it possible
for humans — and countless other crea-
tures — to exist.
“Photosynthesis is arguably the most
important phenomenon on Earth,”
Chisholm says, “Yet few people understand
it. I’ve been on a mission [to educate the
public about] how life works for some
time, and decided the best way to get the
word out — besides teaching ecology
at MIT — is through a set of children’s
books. Molly was eager to take on the
challenge.”
Chisholm is well known for the 1988
discovery, with colleagues from the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution, of a tiny
ocean microbe called Prochlorococcus,
which is responsible for a significant frac-
tion of the photosynthesis in the oceans.
Narrated by a wise and kindly sun,
“Living Sunlight” explains photosynthe-
sis in pictures and words simple enough
for young children and their parents to
understand. Notes at the back of the book
add details about the images and scientific
concepts that a teacher or parent could
use to make the book a good primer for
older children, as well. Additional notes
clarify that a few oversimplifications were
necessary to help young readers grasp the
concepts.
Bang is author and illustrator of 30
children’s books, including award-winning
“The Grey Lady and the Strawberry
Snatcher,” “Ten, Nine, Eight” and “When
Sophie Gets Angry — Really, Really
Angry.”
“Living Sunlight” is the second in a
Scholastic series about the sun’s energy.
The co-authors plan at least two more
books, which will focus on oceans and the
Earth’s carbon cycle.
Children’s book illuminates photosynthesis
Denise Brehm
Civil and Environmental Engineering
IMAGES COURTESY OF MOLLY BANG
Pages from ‘Living Sunlight,’ a children’s book on photosynthesis that MIT ocean microbiologist Penny Chisholm co-authored.
A near
miss, but
no threat
Asteroid in close pass
was smaller than thought,
astronomer shows
On March 2, an asteroid whizzed past
the Earth at a distance of just 41,000
miles — a near miss by cosmic standards
(most communications satellites orbit
at a distance of about 22,300 miles from
Earth). Headlines around the world
proclaimed that Earth had dodged a
bullet, and many mentioned that if the
space rock had hit our planet, it might
have packed a punch comparable to the
Tunguska impact in 1908 that flattened
trees over an 800-square-mile area in
Siberia.
But some fast-tracking observations
by MIT Professor of Planetary Sciences
Richard Binzel proved that this rock was
actually much smaller than that. Likely
just 19 meters (about 60 feet) across, it
would probably have disintegrated high
in the atmosphere, with only a few small
fragments making it to the ground.
Discovered just
two days before its
closest approach to
Earth, the asteroid,
called 2009 DD45,
was initially esti-
mated as between
20 and 40 meters
across. At the high
end, that would have
made it comparable
to the devastating
Tunguska bolide.
Binzel, on sabbati-
cal at the Paris Observatory, decided to
try to make observations of the fast-
moving asteroid, aided by MIT planetary
science alum Francesca DeMeo ’06,
SM ’07 who is currently completing her
doctoral research in Paris on a Fulbright
scholarship.
The asteroid’s close pass was on the
opposite side of the planet from Paris
— over the Pacific Ocean. No problem
for Binzel: He and his students have
routinely made observations using a
remotely controlled telescope in Hawaii.
The telescope can be run from a number
of different locations, including a control
room on the MIT campus and one at the
Paris Observatory.
But following such a nearby encoun-
ter with a large telescope is a technical
challenge. “The object was moving about
100 times faster than the ‘normal’ rate of
objects we track as they cross the Earth’s
orbit, all on account of its very close
passage,” Binzel explains.
Despite that challenge, Binzel says,
“All told, we stayed on the target for
about two hours, before sunrise in Hawaii
brought our observations to a close.” And
it was well worth it, because this enabled
detailed spectroscopic measurements
that determined the object’s composition,
which matched that of an S-type aster-
oid — the most common type. That, in
turn, allowed a more accurate estimate of
how reflective it was, essential to being
able to determine its actual size based on
measurements of its apparent brightness.
After completing the observations
at the observatory’s facility in the Paris
suburb of Meudon, Binzel headed back in
to the city.
“Final calculations for the size were
made on the train ride home,” he says,
“where it occurred to me that the 19
meter size was about the same as the train
car I was riding in, except the asteroid
was going much faster.”
See http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/
asteroids-tt0319.html for more on remote
observing at MIT.
David Chandler
News Office
Richard
Binzel